


Boo, Jeeves!

by okapi



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Agatha Christie Crossover, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Case Fic, Child Murder, Community: spook_me, Epistolary, Ghosts, Halloween, M/M, Murder Mystery, Soul Selling, Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-07 23:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16418414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Bertie sees a ghost.In the epistolary style of Stoker'sDracula(diary entries, letter, newspaper headlines, etc.)For the 2018 Spook Me Ficathon. Crossover with Agatha Christie'sHallowe'en Party. Warning for child murder.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _To P. G. Wodehouse — whose books and stories have brightened my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books_. 
> 
> Dedication of _Hallowe'en Party_ (1969) by Agatha Christie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is [the photo](http://sanspatronymic.tumblr.com/post/177536173205) that served as the seed for the whole fic. I love it.
> 
> A big thanks to my beta [Small Hobbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/pseuds/Small_Hobbit). All mistakes are my own.

**Diary of Bertram Wooster**

15 July 1916

The rummiest thing happened this evening. I saw a chap on a wall smoking. The chap was smoking, not the wall. I took a stroll after dinner and got lost and ended up at the outer limit of Dennistoun’s new realm. I haven’t the foggiest how a dyspeptic crow like D. managed to inherit a vast estate like this one! He doesn’t even fancy it. He’s only saddled with it because a distant cousin and spouse perished in a typhoon somewhere.

Anyway, there’s me, the pride of the Woosters wandering for 40 years in an Italian garden of cheerful nymphs, sad cypress, overgrown fountains, crumbling wishing wells and then there’s this chap. Standing on a wall. Smoking. He wasn’t one of this lot, so I gave him the ‘What ho’ and asked him where he was from.

‘Over the hill,’ he said.

But his face when he turned to look at me! Nursing a Secret Sorrow doesn’t begin to describe it. Melancholy hadn’t just marked him for her own, she’d got him by the short hairs and wasn’t letting go!

He didn’t say anything, just turned his back on me. It was getting dark, so I mumbled a ‘right ho’ and legged it, but I can’t get the image of him out of my mind.

Good-looking fellow. About my age, maybe a couple years younger, my height, my q. aspen frame, my hair. We could’ve been brothers. If I had a brother.

But that face!

Haunting.

And rum. I’d swear the fellow was smoking Harper’s! There isn’t a shop in the metrop that’s had Harper’s for over a year! Not since the factory burnt to cinders. I’ve searched. I had Meadows search, fat lot of good that did, asked at the Drones. Nobody has them anymore.

Must ask Dennistoun in the morning what’s over the hill. Find out Wall Chap’s name and pop ‘round for a visit. Ask him the name of his tobacconist, give him the name of my tailor. No one’s worn trouser cuffs like that for two years! Maybe that’s his s. s.

* * *

16 July 1916    

Green socks missing!

Dennistoun was especially dyspeptic this ack emma because he had to give the mitten to a gardener before his first cup of Bohea. Apparently, said gardener got the sack right before D.’s uncle died, but never left! Been living in a little garden cottage on the estate for a year! Glad I don’t have country squire problems like that!

The Mystery of the Chap Smoking on the Wall will remain unsolved. D. says only thing ‘over the hill’ is cemetery.

Must be pushing on to Easeby & Uncle W. Hear Florence C. will be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a big fan of ghost stories, especially those by M.R. James and Dennistoun is taken from the protagonist of James' "Canon Alberic's Scrap-book."


	2. Chapter 2

#3A Berkeley Mansions

Berkeley Square

London

W1

17 October 1923

Mister Without A. Name

Bookseller & Proprietor, Schrödinger's Catalogue & Books

2 Sackville Street

Piccadilly

London

W1S 3DP

Dear Mister Name:

On behalf of my employer, Mister Bertram Wooster, I would like to commend your perspicacity in the selection of seasonally appropriate literature for his reading pleasure. He was delighted with the assortment delivered and is deriving much enjoyment from the works of Mister Edgar Allan Poe, Mister M. R. James and other masters of the suspenseful, the supernatural, the fantastic, and the autumnally-inspired. Mister Wooster will, no doubt, be visiting your establishment forthwith to offer praise and words of gratitude in person.

There is one minor matter, however, which merits comment. Given Mister Wooster’s unfortunate and colourful history of unrealised betrothals as well as his current state of confirmed and contented bachelorhood, I do not think that the harrowing story of a spectre-fiancée who seeks violent revenge on the young man who, on the day of their intended nuptials, accidentally severed both their matrimonial understanding and the bride-to-be’s head would be a welcome addition to the Wooster library. In fact, even viewing the cover of _The Fish Slice Cuts Twice_ might lead to not a few sleepless nights for my employer, who is a man of a highly sensitive disposition. Wishing to forestall any distress, I have taken the liberty of removing the volume prior to Mister Wooster’s appraisal of the collection and am now returning it without blemish. A revised invoice will be paid upon immediate receipt. Naturally, I do not wish for Mister Wooster to be made aware of the omission, and I trust I can rely on your confidence in this matter.

I remain yours, respectfully,

R. Jeeves

* * *

25 October 1923

Dearest Reggie,

Please come at once. My health has been in decline for some months, and I can no longer ignore the signs. The hour when Nature will see fit to wrench my spirit free of this husk of a body is fast approaching, and there is so much I’ve left undone and unsaid. Please come and help me put my affairs in order. I require someone upon whom I may rely wholeheartedly, and Beetle, bless her and these fifty years we’ve shared, is as much in need of aid and comfort as I am. Between ourselves, I think it is highly probable that she and I shall pass from this life hand-in-hand.

You, my dearest Reggie, the brightest of all the young Jeeveses, are also the most likely to understand what I want to impart and be able to wield my wisdom justly. More selfishly, my shiny red apple, I wish to see your shining face one last time before the veil falls between us. Please come at once and may an aunt’s blessing be upon you.

Aunt Hexobah

* * *

COME AT ONCE. QUARRY HOUSE. BRING JEEVES AND BEST GHOST STORIES. TRAVERS

JEEVES UNAVAILABLE. OFF TO NURSE DYING AUNT. BERTIE UNAVAILABLE. OFF TO DRONES CIDER TASTING AND PUMPKING CARVING TOURNAMENT. REGARDS GHOST STORIES, RECOMMEND WORKS OF M R JAMES. ESPECIALLY ONE ABOUT WHISTLE. AVAILABLE ANY FINE BOOKSHOP. BERTIE

STOP BACK-CHAT! AM NOT MADE OF MONEY! COME AT ONCE. QUARRY HOUSE. TRAVERS

WHERE QUARRY HOUSE? WHY QUARRY HOUSE? IN MELLOW FRUITY AUTUMN MIST. STORY ABOUT MEZZOTINT ALSO TOPPIN’. BERTIE

BUY A MAP, FATHEAD. QUARRY HOUSE, HOME OF COLONEL AND MRS WESTON, WOODLEIGH COMMON, HERTFORDSHIRE. BY MORNING OR EXPECT AN AUNT’S CURSE! TRAVERS

* * *

Domestic and Household Services, LTD.

15 Stratton St

Mayfair

London

W1J 8LQ

25 October 1923

 

#3A Berkeley Mansions

Berkeley Square

London

W1

Dear Mister Jeeves:

I am pleased to inform you that a candidate meeting the thirty-seven criteria detailed in your request for temporary relief valet services has been identified and will be reporting to your employer’s address at eight o’clock, tomorrow morning. I trust he will give satisfaction and remain your respectfully,

J. Ganymede, Senior

* * *

REGRET ORIGINAL CANDIDATE RENDERED UNEXPECTEDLY UNAVAILABLE. DISPATCHING REPLACEMENT TO YOUR ADDRESS WITHIN THE HOUR. SINCEREST APOLOGIES. J. GANYMEDE, SR.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More about Bertie's first encounter with W. A. Name, bookseller is to be found in [Chapter 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503425/chapters/33506295) of Jeeves & The Blue Train. 
> 
> 'The one about the whistle' refers to M.R. James' "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." The other M.R. James story referenced is "The Mezzotint." 
> 
> Here is the cover art for _The Fish Slice Cuts Twice_ , which is one of two image prompts I received for the Spook Me Ficathon Challenge: 
> 
>  


	3. Chapter 3

26 October 1923

Dear Sir,

Please pardon the untidiness of this missive. I am at some haste to ensure that it reaches you by the afternoon post. I’d be grateful if you would communicate, at your earliest convenience, any reservations you might have regarding the replacement valet. I fear that his performance may fall short of the standard to which you are accustomed.

I have reached my destination safely and will write more when circumstances allow. All correspondence will reach me directly and securely at the address provided. I also include a telephone number where you may reach me in case of emergency.

Yours, very sincerely,

R. Jeeves

* * *

26 October 1923

Jeeves,

You ol’ thing. Everything is hotsy-totsy here at Quarry House, too, so you may dispense with the feudal stiff-upper-lip-ness and take all the liberties, correspondence-wise, your stuffed frog’s heart desires.

And speaking of lost hearts, don’t fret, keeper of my mine, Tony’s working out just fine. I understand. I sympathise with your consternation—if consternation is the word I want. I, too, have known grave disappointment. Once, for example, at Claridge’s I ordered the day boat hake and what was placed before me had to have been last night’s Pony Express cutlet, but did I bristle? No, I simply smothered the charcoaled piece of flattened bovine with hen of the woods mushrooms and washed it down with a rather larger volume of grape’s agony than I’d planned on imbibing. It’s the same case here. When you requested the agency send a temporary replacement, you were expecting an antediluvian manservant with the skills of a domestic samurai and the visage and physique of a murderous Ourang-Outang, but Tony (we discussed it on the drive and he suggested I use a nickname, his surname being something Greek that I should massacre like a Turk—or is it the other way around?), so, that is, Tony, though a person of more tender years than anticipated and in possession of a human form most closely resembling that of a garden statue that Bingo Little and I used to pash at Oxford, does, in fact, know his way around a shirt stud. And an ironing board, for that matter.

I’m glad you’ve reached your aunt’s, and I know she takes much comfort in having you by her side. A nephew’s devotion is a splendid thing, and speaking of, I’ve finally learned the reason for Aunt Dahlia’s wrangling me here. It’s rather a longish story, so pour yourself a glass of Amontillado if you’re parched and gather ‘round in comfortable posish.

It starts with Aunt Dahlia losing her chemise and it ends with her not wanting to lose her dress, and before pictures of unclothed aunts begins to haunt you like a dead cat, let me explain. Aunt Dahlia lost a packet on a horse named Pinking Shears, which she’d heard was a snip, and now she hasn’t the money to pay her dressmaker for a new frock that she has her heart set on wearing to a special event related, I believe, to her former membership in the Quorn (or maybe it’s the Pytchley), and the dressmaker, apparently as formidable as her clientele, is threatening to take _her_ pinking shears and snip said garment right out of Aunt Dahlia’s wardrobe. By force, is what I mean. Like Beatrice’s teeth. Aunt Dahlia can’t go to Uncle Tom and ask for the money directly because he’s in a horrible temper about some new tax which is, by all account, worse than the pit or the pendulum, but the nearest and dearest has got a rather fruity scheme for sweetening her better half into being more amiable to opening ye ol’ wallet and sharing a bit of its contents.

You remember Uncle Tom’s silver cow creamer? Well, apparently, in a secret, no doubt, well-polished corner of the antique silver collecting world, there’s a rumour that a certain item of great interest to Uncle Tom—the figure of a silver cockerel, that is, a fighting specimen of the cock-a-doodle-doo variety—may be in the possession of one Mrs. Rowena Drake of Woodleigh Common.

Ah-ha, you say to yourself. Enough talk of whist and chess. The plot finally thickens.

Aunt Dahlia happens to be an old school chum of a Mrs. Weston of Woodleigh Common, the latter and her husband, Colonel Weston, having bought a residence called the Quarry House after the death of the aunt of Mrs. Drake’s late husband.

And here we come to the crux of the matter, if quixotic searches for roosters sculpted in precious metals have cruxes; tomorrow, this Mrs. Drake is hosting a Hallowe’en party for an assembly of youths ages eleven to sixteen, and Aunt Dahlia has not only secured invitations for good-and-deserving aunt and favourite nephew to attend, but she’s also offered our help in assisting with preparations and entertainment. Her objective is to discover, by hook or by crook, if the cockerel is truly in Mrs. Drake’s hen house and, upon confirmation of such, open negotiations for the purchase of said shiny barnyard bird. She assures me that everything will be above board this time, no pinching, no coshes, but knowing my aged relative, I am certain that a bit of dirty work at the crossroads will not be out of the question. After all, aunts aren’t gentlemen, especially when a well-tailored frock is at stake.

Aunt Dahlia has billed me as a writer, which, of course, I am, my oeuvre consisting of the one article, or piece as we journalists call it, I wrote for Milady’s Boudoir on “What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing.” It is because of these literary leanings that I have been assigned the role of storyteller for this autumn fete. I’m supposed to entertain the cherubs with a spine-tingling tale featuring a lady vampire or a monkey and a fellow whose collar buttons at the back or some such. How much more grateful am I for that assortment of books sent ‘round by my bookseller extraordinaire last week?

I need hardly say that it is not my first choice of ways to spend an October evening, but I shall fulfill my duty as raconteur to the best of my ability, as the saying goes. If I protested or outright refused, Aunt Dahlia would just torture me with story after story of deadly rubber comforters wrenched out of the mouths of babes and games of tiddledywinks with measly schoolboys and all the other good turns she’s done me in my career until I relented. She requires a second in command whom she can, well, command, a Burke to her Hare, if you well, but _my_ main purpose in agreeing to the whole ranygazoo is to keep an eye on her and make certain she plays by Hoyle’s rules. You remember what happened with the cat in Maiden Eggesford.

Colonel and Mrs. Weston are a congenial pair of hosts, and it will be no sacrifice to spend a couple of days in their company. The Quarry House is known, or so I’m told, for its garden, a quarry or sunken garden, so the next item on my agenda is a stroll and a smoke before dinner to give it a look-see.

The Code of the Woosters prevents me from saying you should be anywhere but where you are, viz. by with your aunt in her hour of direst need. Rest assured I’m in good hands, just not the hands I choose above all others, and know me to be, now and always,

Yours,

B.

* * *

**A GHOST STORY by B. W. Wooster**

_Two Irishmen, Pat and Mike, were walking along Broadway, and one said to the other, “Begorrah, do you see that ghost?” and the other replied, “Faith and begob, I do.” Then the ghost turns to them and says, ‘the race is not always to the spookiest’ and ‘haunting houses is not so much a drawing out as a putting in…’_

* * *

 

26 October 1923

Jeeves,

Believe me or believe me not, every word I’m about to write is the truth. After you read what happened to me this evening, you may suspect that your y.m. has gone off his onion, you may be moved to call Sir Roderick Glossop in a professional capacity, you may say to yourself it’s high time Bertram Wooster was fitted for the kind of tight waistcoats that are all the rage at Colney Hatch, and I wouldn’t blame you, not in the least.

Nevertheless, I will lay the whole matter before you, and you can make of it, and me, what you will.

Dinner might have been a lovely affair, but I had got the wind up to such a ghastly extent over what happened before dinner that I might have been eating cold veal and ham pie in a Piccadilly bun shop for all the notice I took of it. I mean, my contribution to the feast of reason and flow of soul was about that of a headless horseman or a Trappist monk.

Aunt Dahlia, of course, was not blind to the lack of quips, sallies, and diverting anecdotes pouring forth from her nephew’s lips, but before she could corner me for a private snootering, I gave a firm _nolle prosequi_ to coffee and bridge, pleading a touch of plague or schistosomiasis or sprue or something, and hied to my assigned sleeping quarters with a fistful of aspirin and a hot water bottle.

Once it’s all in black and white, I, or you, may be able to find the incident susceptible to a ready explanation. But, I confess, at the moment, it’s got me, what’s the word, oh, yes, dumbfounded.

First, the Quarry Garden. It is a five-minute stroll from the Quarry House to the Quarry Woods, where the garden is located. The old lady who lived at Quarry House before the Westons was a Mrs. Llewellyn-Smith, a widow of a shipping magnate or some such, and she’d gone on a tour of gardens in Ireland and seen a quarry garden and had come home, all pep and ginger, wanting one of her own. Having the means to do so, she hired a master gardener, and he made her dream come true, as they say.

I’m not much of a lad for the flora, but even I can tell it’s a rather special spot. It’s full of autumn colour, reds and golds and yellows, flowers and bushes and shrubbery and whatnot. There is a path that runs in a rather serpentine fashion, and rustic benches appearing every so often for one to stop and smell the autumn crocus, I suppose.

The air was coming all over cool and crisp and as I walked along I truly felt that, no matter what horror might come, that at least for a moment God was in his heavens and all was right with the world.

Then I turned a bend and chanced upon a kind of dip, you know, a hollow of sorts with a stone wall jutting out from it.

And there was a man standing on the wall, smoking.

And the rummy thing is that I knew the blighter. I’d seen him once before at my pal Dennistoun’s place in Dorset. It was seven years ago, right before you came to earn the weekly envelope at the Wooster stand. And this cove had been doing the exact same thing then as he was doing this evening, viz. standing on a garden wall, smoking. But, and here’s the kicker, Jeeves, he was wearing the exact same clothes he was wearing that night seven years ago, I remember because I felt sorry for the blighter’s out-of-style trousers cuffs.

Trousers aside, he was also still smoking Harper’s. Harper’s, Jeeves! It was a bally miracle to find a Harper’s cigarette seven years ago; how many more angels fitting on the head of a pin is it now?

And here’s another rummy bit: when I asked him where he was from, he said, ‘over the hill’ and then I asked Dennistoun the next morning what was over the hill and he said the only thing over the hill was the cemetery!

What did the johnny look like, you might ask? Could I pick him out of a line-up, as they say in the films? Well, to be honest, I could, especially if I had a looking glass handy because he looked a lot like the pride of the Wooster, except for his expression (for this fellow def. appeared to be the quintessential Toad in the Harrow, an air I rarely sport unless I’m in the company of Aunt Agatha or, you know, engaged) and those old-fashioned trousers that I wouldn’t even try to get past your hidebound code. I mean to say, worse than the Old Etonian spats, Jeeves!

As baffled as I was to run into this curious chappie again, I also was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Harper’s cigarettes, and so I greeted him with cordiality.

‘What ho, what ho, what ho!’

He turned his head and looked at me with a wild surmise (silent upon a p. in D).

He recognised me, of that I was certain, but I had the feeling he didn’t know any more what to make of me than I did of him.

‘I say,’ I said. ‘Haven’t we met before? Dorset?’

He nodded.

‘Wooster,’ I chirped, ‘Bertram.’ And I tapped my chest for good measure.

‘I’m Haddie.’

Well, with the introductions over, I thought I’d move on to more important matters, but then I considered my posish vis-à-vis this chappie. I mean to say, at this point in the preceding, his brogues were about at the level of my elbow patches, and I decided that if I were in his brogues and he was in my elbow patches and I was going to have a stranger touch me for a very rare specimen of tobacco, I’d expect the blighter to at least have the common courtesy to look me in the eye. So, I said,

‘View’s good up there, eh?’

For a moment, he just goggled down at me, but then he waved a beckoning hand. ‘See for yourself.’

Well, it took a bit of scrambling, but I got up there. It was a goodish view, in fact, but I was keen to get down to the matter of the golden leaf.

‘I hope you won’t think me foul, but would you be able to part with another of those?’ I inclined the lemon toward his cigarette.

He shook the bean. ‘My last.’

Hope burnt to ash, but Bertram rose above, like a phoenix.

‘So, what brings you here?’

He looked at me with gloomiest, most anguished expression I’ve ever had the misfortune to gaze upon and said,

‘My soul.’

Well, I mean to say, what? Conversation languished like a sated lady vampire for a moment, then I recovered.

‘Your soul’s in Hertfordshire?’ I asked, thinking that as clarifications went, geography might be the best way to go.

‘It’s in a silver cockerel.’

Now you can imagine the effect this had on me, hearing Aunt Dahlia’s Holy Grail of the Coop being mentioned in the same breath as someone’s soul. I lost my balance a bit, wobbled and flailed on the perch, as it were, and as I reached out to steady myself, my arm swung in the direction of my companion, but even though my limb was directed right at his gizzard, the Wooster appendage didn’t strike him.

Quite the contrary, it went right through him.

‘You’re not there!’ I stammered, trying valiantly to keep my pins underneath me.

He shook the melon.

When I was no longer doing my amateur tightrope-walking act, I reached out again, with the same result: no form, no substance to the parties of the second part. But I swear on all that’s holy, Jeeves, he was real. I saw him, and I spoke to him, and he spoke to me.

‘Are you…?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Just to make things crystal, I tried from a different. ‘So, I’m seeing a ghost, phantom, spectre, poltergeist?’ A bit of ye ol’ thesaurus never goes amiss in moments of crisis, I’ve found.                                                                                 

‘Yes.’

‘No one said this garden was haunted!’

‘Because it’s not.’

This gave me the pip for some reason.

‘Now I say, I don’t mean to cleave rabbits, but if you’ve got a bally ghost in your garden, I think it’s considered haunted.’

‘No one else can see me. No one living, that is.’

This seemed incredible.

‘No one else can see you?’ I echoed.

‘Well, one person can, of course. And there’s a girl who comes here quite a lot,’ he took a melancholy drag on the cigarette. ‘She may be able to see me, too, but I’m not certain. A pretty waif with a voice like a bell. She’s like a wood nymph or a dryad.” He seemed to come back to himself. “But I’ve never spoken to her, nor her to me. And then there’s you.’

‘But why me?’ I wailed.

‘Precisely what I’m asking myself.’

Just then there was a noise.

He turned to me and urged, _sotto voce_ ,

‘Go.’

Well, I don’t know what you would’ve done, but when a ghost tells me to make like a tree and leave, I don’t argue. Faster than you can say ‘Peter Quint,’ I was leaping from the wall like a lassie surprised while bathing and legging it back up the path and all the way to Quarry House.

So you can see why I was a bit distrait at dinner.

Why can I see Haddie? How did he become a ghost? How did he move from a garden in Dorset to a garden in Hertfordshire? And where does the silver cockerel fit in all this?

Or does Haddie even exist? Perhaps the Wooster cerebellum has finally cracked under the strain of being a typical young man about town, and I’m conjuring apparitions out of thin air. I don’t know much, but I’m planning to wrangle another day of the Woodleigh Common hosp so as to return to Quarry Garden and get a few answers, if they’re to be had.

I wish you were here, old thing. Yours, in and out of the looney bin,

B.

* * *

**Diary of Bertram Wooster**

24 October 1923

I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ghost. I thought I’d put my racing mind to good use by re-reading my story for tomorrow. I have to say, it’s lacking something. Def. needs a bit of the ol’ razzle-dazzle. I remembered I’d given my copy of _Ghost Stories of an Antiquary_ to Tony and crept downstairs, trying to avoid sleeping dogs, antique clocks, tell-tale hearts, and anything else that might make a foul noise and rouse the household. I saw a light on in T.’s room and did my best impress of Poe’s raven, viz. rap-tap-tapping on the chamber door.

Sweet J. prophesying before the P.!

T. was in trousers, smoking. Just trousers. No shirt, no vest, no socks. He’s got a scar, a nasty bit of knifework from belt buckle to sternum, but the rest of him is Renaissance marble sculpted by a someone who likes his Byron tempting as all get out.

T. wasn’t flustered at all, just bid me sit at the foot of the bed. I sat, and we got to chatting about ghost stories. I didn’t mention Haddie, but I did give an impromptu recital of what’s being served up tomorrow for the wee ones. T. agreed it wasn’t exactly what mother used to make. More chin wagging, then T. gave me a corker of an idea for a story! Just the stuff to give the troops! Also, T. agreed to help tomorrow at the party. He’s a jolly good sport, and I told him so. Then a rummy thing happened. T. gave me a queer look and said I reminded of someone he used to know and offered me a drag on his cigarette.

A Harper’s!  

My head spun. My heart pounded. I was weak, so weak, and not _preux_ , not by a long shot.

I took the blasted thing, smoked it, loved it, asked no questions, thanked him wildly, said _adieu_. Just like an afternoon at the baths.

This whole ball of wax has given me a headache, but I’ll put T.’s idea on paper, then see if Queen Mab will take this poor wretch. If not, I shall ferret out ye ol’ hip flask and play vassal to King Whiskey until dawn.

* * *

 

**Pie [as told to B. W. Wooster]**

_Once upon a time, there were five rotten kids who wreaked havoc on innocent townsfolk. They loved to steal pies! They stole from everyone. No pie was safe. The whole town was in an uproar, but the kids were too clever to be caught. Every day was the same. Nothing ever changed until one day, a glorious scent came wafting into their hideout._

_“Pie!”_

_They rounded a corner and came upon the most amazing pastry. They had to have it! They drooled as sweet old Mrs. Scarecrow pushed a cart with the magnificent pie._

_They called to her, “That’s some pie you have there!”_

_Then the devilish kids stole her pie and dashed off, triumphant._

_They celebrate, of course, by gobbling the pie up, and it was so good that the greedy kids wanted more, but they didn’t know where Mrs. Scarecrow lived._

_Just then, the amazing pie scent returned._

_They were so excited, they followed it into the dark woods until they reached a cottage._

_They locked Mrs. Scarecrow out of her own cottage and formed a plan. They were to split up to search for the pie. The aroma of pie led them through the dark cottage, but before they knew it, they started to get picked off one by one._

_A painting came alive and yanked one inside a wall._

_A bookshelf swiped another._

_A dingy cellar staircase turned into a slide, sending a third through a trapdoor._

_A fourth simply disappeared into a black void._

_Finally, the last one was left. His name was Rupert. Rupert entered the kitchen and found the pie. Entranced, he took a bite. Then he froze as Mrs. Scarecrow entered the kitchen._

_“Well, well, well. Are you enjoying my pie? You really should try one fresh out the oven.”_

_She opened the oven door to reveal four pies wearing the other boys’ hats and the other girls’ hair ribbons. Their faces were pushed through the dough, pleading and crying and whimpering._

_Mrs. Scarecrow slammed the oven door shut. “Oh, not done yet. You must’ve guessed my secret ingredient.”_

_“Ch-ch-children?” said Rupert._

_“Oh, I don’t pick just any children. I pick the foulest, stickiest, most rotten kids I can find, and you, Rupert, are the worst little boy I’ve come across!”_

_Mrs. Scarecrow laughed maniacally and grabbed her rolling pin._

_“Let’s bake a pie!”_

_Rupert ran for his life as she chased him through the cottage._

_Finally, he spotted the front door._

_“I’m free!” he cried._

_But before he could flee, Mrs. Scarecrow grabbed him and yanked him back inside the cottage._

_There was no escape._

_Rupert, too, was pie._

* * *

 

**[found in fire grate, servant’s quarters, Quarry House]**

Beautiful…

Despite all my rationing…last of your….what’s more, I shared…new guv….thinking I couldn’t stick….any price, the blasted…sends me to…looks like your brother…like your half-witted cousin….terrific binds, just like you did…

…seven years…thought you’d be a memory…scar’s always…would’ve taken all the damned scars…….talk to me instead of jumping…Damn that…! If I ever find him…Devil himself….

Yours…always…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story "Pie" is taken from _Mickey Mouse, The Scariest Story Ever!_ (2018). As is Jeeves' aunt's name. 
> 
> There are references to Edgar Allen Poe stories: 'murderous Ourang-Outang' and 'chess and whist' refer to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"; a dead cat refers to "The Black Cat"; a glass of Amontillado refers to "The Cask of Amontillado"; 'Bernice's teeth' refers to "Bernice."
> 
> 'Peter Quint' refers to one of the ghosts in Henry James' _The Turn of the Screw_.
> 
> 'Headless horseman' refers to "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.


	4. Chapter 4

27 October 1923

Jeeves,

I’ve escaped to a quiet bough of Apple Trees, the cheerily-named residence serving party HQ, to write to you. Downstairs is chaos. A small, energetic army of the delicately nurtured are going in and out of doors, moving chairs, tables, and vases, and anyone who isn’t in motion with a piece of furniture in their hands is saddled with an orange pumpkin to haul somewhere. When I left, there was a heated debate underway about the merits of a pail versus a galvanized bucket for the bobbing-for-apples, and some of the little cherubs were eager to demonstrate pros and cons. Not wanting the tweeds dampened, I made a stealth exit Prompt side, and I’m not too proud to admit that I am probably not conspic by my a.

The army is made up of village mothers with a few spinsters like the organist’s sister and the chemist’s dispenser thrown in for good measure; though a stranger to these parts, Aunt Dahlia has fallen right in among them. There are a couple of striplings, with Tony added to their ranks, who are climbing ladders and hanging decorations and strings of lights. There is also a gaggle of girls (a Beatrice, a Cathie, an Ann, and a Joyce, at least, I believe) whose chief occupation seems to be giggling and making eyes at Tony. There is one girl, however, whom I envy. Her name is Miranda, and when her mother Judith arrived to help, she came bearing the unfortunate news that Miranda woke with a fever and is confined to sickbed. Were I so lucky this morning! But I suspect that even if I’d been struck down by bubonic plague, Aunt Dahlia would have dragged my flea-bitten corpse here, so braced is she to get in the good graces of the party hostess and discover the whereabouts of the fabled piece of silver.

At the centre of the whirlwind is, of course, the hostess herself, Mrs. Rowena Drake. Imagine Aunt Agatha minus a couple of decades (or Honoria Glossop plus one) and you’ll get the idea. Tall, handsome, middle-aged, ruthlessly efficient. Mister Drake is no longer with us; he died a couple of years ago and though no one has mentioned what felled him I suspect it was sheer exhaustion at trying to keep up with his better half. When we were introduced, Mrs. Drake’s piercing blue eyes immediately gave the pride of the Woosters the east-to-west and without so much as a ‘by your leave,’ thrust a pumpkin at me, hard and right about the third waistcoat button. She ordered me to take the Cinder’s coach into the dining room. I mean to say, she’s a formidable ol’ beazel if ever there was one, but I suppose Aunt Dahlia’s so accustomed to dealing with Aunt Agatha that she doesn’t even notice, she just hauls up her slacks and gets to work. The two are becoming fast friends, and I imagine by the end of the party Aunt Dahlia will be in possession of news on the fowl front.

It shows you what a singular state I’m in that I had the passing notion whilst I was fetching and toting various and sundry hither and thither that what the soiree lacked was Rupert Steggles. If there were a single soul on the premises with some sporting blood, I might try to set up a book myself, but are the likes of organist’s sisters and chemist’s dispensers keen to part with their pin money in such a fashion? I think not.

But judge for yourself, Jeeves. Here are the events.

First, we have Broomstick Decoration. Not of interest as the wee ones arrive with their entries, small-scale versions of witch-chariots, in hand, so it’d be impossible to estimate form. I’ve also heard directly from the stables that this event is just a way for the gawdelpus not go home empty-handed.

Next, we have the Flour Cake, which is more interesting. If you, like me until an hour ago, are ignorant of this diversion, here’s what it amounts to: a tumbler of pressed flour is overturned on a tray and a sixpence is placed on top. Each participant slices a slice and if the coin falls, you’re out. Last one standing gets the sixpence. Neat, eh? Wish I knew something about the competitors. Might be worth a flutter.

Then there’s the main event: bobbing for apples. This is done in pairs in the library with a pail (or galvanised bucket depending on who’s winning the debate downstairs). I can easily imagine Bingo Little losing his little all at it; I can also imagine my cousins Claude and Eustace becoming quite heated about ante post odds; I mean to say, in other circs, a jolly good bit of fun might be had.

After that, there will be dancing and supper. During the dancing, I’m informed there will be a fortune teller on the premises and the young maidens may, should they wish, gaze into hand mirrors and see their ‘true loves.’ The striplings explained to me how the effect is achieved, but I have to say, I didn’t quite follow. It involves a carefully-aimed spotlight and photographs that the lads have had doctored in London floating down from the ceiling. I can’t imagine thinking up such a wheeze in my day. Don’t believe the papers, Jeeves, the youth of today are not lazy, they are industrious to an astounding degree!

Anyway, after the young revelers have swung their dashed efficient shoes and licked their nosebags clean, it shall be time for the finale, viz. Bertram’s moment to shine. I think I shall have a rather docile audience, what with the natural dénouement following the fortuneteller’s revelations, the fatigue of tripping the light fantastic, and that sluggish feeling which usually accompanies the consumption of heaping plates of delicacies (and I know they are delicacies because I took a detour through the kitchen and was permitted by a very benevolent cook to try a few for myself). But I’m not concerned. Tony has provided me with a top-shelf yarn, which I’ve been practising since I gave the new day the glad eye.

The finish of the party is Snapdragon, you know, a great dish of raisins soaked in brandy and set ablaze. I’ve always thought of it as a Christmas gag, but if the juvenile elements want to pluck at flaming dried fruit and cry ‘Ow, I’m burned! Isn’t it lovely?’ at the end of October, who I am I argue?

And then the prize-giving. The End, as they say in the films.

You might think that with all the buzz, I’ve forgotten about my ghost in the garden, but I haven’t. Not by a long shot. And here’s one reason why.

A curious scene transpired just before I made like a phantasm myself and disappeared.

I was helping the lads hang the lights on the stairs, in fact, doing my best imitation of a dapper scarecrow, that is, standing with my hands up while the boys untwined the strands as needed—a pose very similar to the one that I’m often called to take when helping aged r.’s of the knitting breed with their yarn.

Anyway, a girl named Ann, looking tall and superior, asked me if I was the one saddled with the story-telling, to which I replied in the affirmative. Then a sturdy girl of about thirteen years named Joyce inquired if what I was going to recount was a ghost story or a murder story. I considered the question and said the latter. Then she posed a follow-up question, with a ghoulish light in her close-set eyes, I might add.

‘Will there be lots of blood? I like murders to have lots of blood.’

‘That’d be a bit messy,’ I said, thinking of the tweeds.

‘But exciting. I saw a murder once. And a ghost.’

Now Joyce’s pronouncement interested me strangely given that I, too, had seen a ghost in Woodleigh Common; wanting to probe further, I opened my maw to ask for details, but there was a schoolteacher present, a Mrs. Whittaker, who, like any good schoolteacher, issued a quick, sharp rebuke.

‘Don’t be silly, Joyce.’

‘I did,’ protested Joyce.

‘Did you really?’ asked a girl named, I think, Cathie or maybe Beatrice.

‘Of course, she didn’t,’ said Mrs. Drake, who entered Centre Left, ‘Don’t say silly things, Joyce.’

Joyce, being given the royal pip by the chorus of doubting Thomases, began to turn pink and her voice took on the pitch of canary being squeezed. ‘I did see a murder. And a ghost. I did! I did!’

‘What kind of murder?’ asked one of the lads on the stairs.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said another girl, whose name I didn’t catch.

‘Of course not,’ said a mother. ‘She’s just making it up.’

But Joyce was having none of it. ‘I’m not! I saw it! I saw a murder! And a ghost!’

‘Why didn’t you go to the police about the murder?’ asked Tony, interjecting a bit of common sense in to the cross-examination, I thought.

Joyce seemed to brighten at this, whether it was at Tony’s face or his question, I don’t know. ‘Because I didn’t know it was a murder when I saw it. It wasn’t really till a long time afterwards, I mean, that I began to know that it was a murder.’

‘You see? She’s making it all up. It’s nonsense,’ said Ann, still tall, still superior.

‘It’s like that story she told about going to India and riding elephants!’

‘That happened, too!’ insisted Joyce, whose pink face was deepening to mauve.

‘When did the murder happen?’ asked another member of the chorus named, I believe, it was Beatrice or maybe Cathie, whichever the earlier one wasn’t.

‘Years ago. I was quite young at the time.’

This, I could’ve told Joyce was the wrong tack to take, and, indeed, it made the jury give a collective eye roll and sigh. Never to follow the flock, however, I finally got my inquiry out.

‘Where did you see it? The ghost, I mean?’ I asked.

‘The Quarry Garden.’  

‘And the murder?’ asked someone behind me.

‘There, too.’

‘Oh, did the ghost do the murder?’ said Ann with a sneer well beyond her years.

At this, everyone laughed, except Joyce, who by now had taken on the colour of beetroot. She screeched.

‘I shan’t tell any of you! You’re all so horrid about it!’

It was just then that one of the spinsters arrived with the pail and another with the galvanised bucket, and the great bobbing-for-apples debate broke out and as the boys were no longer in need of my services, I oiled off to find a secluded spot and pen this missive to you.

So you see, Jeeves, I’m divided. On the one hand, it seems like Joyce might not be on the palliest terms with the truth. On the other hand, if she can see Haddie, too, a frank conversation with her might go a long way into explaining what in the Dickens’ Signalman is going on. And there’s another thing that bothers me: I recall that Haddie described the young girl who could see him as a nymph with a voice like a bell and I confess that is not how I would describe young Joyce. To me, she’s a rather square thing with a bit of Pug about the muzzle and brown fringe. Her teeth stick out and she is in possession of an adenoidal voice that would strip paint. But perhaps ghosts judge by other standards. Regardless, more information is required, and I will endeavour to have another conversation with her tête-à-tête at some point during the festivities.

I will drop this at the post office on my way to Quarry House. I may sneak in a quick foray to Haddie’s Haunt (Quarry Garden) before it’s time for all good Woosters to come to the aide of the (Hallowe’en) party.

Yours,

B.

* * *

27 October 1923

Dear Bertram,

You do seem to be experiencing a singular phenomenon. Though my aunt’s condition prevents it, I greatly desire to be by your side and assist you in the discovery of a ready explanation for the matter. Ready explanation, I might add, is not confined, at least in my mind, to the purely physical world. I cannot go into details at the moment, but through the conversations with my aunt, I am realising, much like Shakespeare’s Horatio, there may be more things in Heaven and Earth that are dreamt of in my, and even Spinoza’s, philosophy. Eagerly awaiting your news,

J.

* * *

27 October 1923

Jeeves,

A very quick note. I’m back in my quiet bough at Apple Trees.

On the plus side of the ledger, my story was an unqualified smash! All credit goes to Tony, who had the brainiest of wheezes to add: at the very end, he, dressed up as Mrs. Scarecrow, knocks on the door of the conservatory and says in a fantastic voice, “PIE!” Everyone screamed! I swear, Jeeves, the stage lost a fine actor when that young man decided to go into service. I shall ask him, and if he has any theatrical aspirations, I don’t know that I shan’t become a patron of the arts.

On the minus side, relations between Aunt Dahlia and Mrs. Drake seem to have cooled for reasons unknown to Bertram and aunt, but the aged r. hasn’t given up. We Woosters don’t.

Also, I haven’t been able to speak to Joyce alone yet, but I continue to do my best impression of a railway station bag snatcher waiting for the right moment to spring. Perhaps I shall offer to accompany her home if there’s a way that might be managed without appearing to be a creep of the first order. I have to say, however, the more time I spend around her, the more unreliable a narrator she appears to be.

I did take a swift stroll in Quarry Garden before the party (alone, because Tony informed me he has a strong aversion to gardens). No signs of Haddie, but I bumped into the master gardener, Michael Garfield. He lives in a cottage nearby. He made me as jumpy as a governess at Bly, but I can’t say why exactly. At the risk of sounding hidebound, he seemed in possession of a bit too much diablerie.

The revelers are downstairs at the Snapdragon, so the party is almost over. It’s been a great success, and I can’t imagine anything going wrong now.

Best,

B.

* * *

**THE WOODLEIGH COMMON GAZETTE**

LOCAL CHILD DROWNED AT NEIGHBOURHOOD PARTY!

A thirteen-year-old girl was found drowned at a Hallowe’en party held at Apple Trees, Woodleigh Common. Police believe the child’s head was thrust into a galvanised iron bucket full of water that had been used for bobbing for apples and held there until life expired. Police have interviewed all the guests who attended at the party, but no suspects have yet been identified…


	5. Chapter 5

**Diary of Bertram Wooster**

28 October 1923

A child murdered! How it makes all one’s worries, one’s cares seem as petty as a silver cockerel! Clear from constabulary’s attitude that ‘natural causes’ is out of the q and ‘foul play’ is def suspected. I mean, Joyce didn’t have a fit or anything. She was drowned! Poor thing! I gave statement and answered questions. Where was I on the night of October 27th? The whole Wooster contingency is requested to remain in the area. Aunt Agatha, Tony, and I returned to Quarry House about 2 am. Col. & Mrs. W. very pukka, have extended the welcome mat to us all as long as required.

It’s 4 am. I can’t sleep. Can’t stop thinking.

_Was Joyce murdered because she said she’d seen a murder?_

_Was Joyce murdered because she said she’d seen a ghost?_

Curse Jeeves & his blessed aunt! I need him here!

* * *

28 October 1923

Jeeves,

It did all the good in the world to hear your baritone this morning on the telephone. I know you were all of do-dah when you saw the headline in the morning’s paper, but don’t worry, old thing. I was down among the wines and spirits last night, of course, but I did get one or two hours of the dreamless and then got outside the eggs and b. and after consuming about a gallon of strong coffee and smoking a fortifying cigarette, I now feel like the pride of fighting ancestors once more, ready to don ye ol’ deerstalker and Get to the Bottom of Things.

I promised to keep you abreast of developments, so here’s how my day has gone so far.

As soon as I was able, I made another visit to Quarry Garden and ran once more into Michael Garland, the master gardener. I mentioned him in my letter of yesterday and wrote that I didn’t think much of him. Well, that opinion hasn’t altered upon second meeting. He’s a bit older than I am with dark hair cut close to the head like a cap. Good-looking, I suppose, if you’re a Cathy wandering about the moor missing your Heathcliff. I asked him a few general questions about the garden, and he spoke in quiet way, but as if he were really thinking of something else, something abstract, like Truth or Beauty. I mean to say, I wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he had a portrait of himself that ages hidden away in his attic.

He’s got the artistic temperament in spades, even though its trees and shrubbery instead of paints. For example, he heaved a sigh and asked (airily or glibly and rhetorically, to boot) ‘Is anyone ever satisfied?’ and talked about how easy it was to convince clients like the late Mrs. Llewellyn-Smith that his ideas were their own and then carry them out with their money. Arrogant, I mean to say. But no one can argue the garden’s a veritable Eden carved out of stone. And he mentioned that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smith, in fact, left him Quarry House and the Garden when she died, and he after working on it for four years, he up and sold the whole business to the Westons, just like that. Odd, no? I thought so. And in addition to arrogant and odd, there was also something sinister about him, and I sensed it even before he asked me to his cottage to take a gander at his scrapbooks. And by gander, I mean the sauce that isn’t for the goose.  

Now before your stuffed frog starts to boil, I said some other time, meaning never, and he took it like an oak and we each went our separate ways: I, to OP, that is, further along the path to where I’d seen Haddie and he, to Prompt, towards the edge of Quarry Wood.

But really? Scrapbooks! I mean to say, Bertram Wooster may be a half-wit, but he’s also a graduate of Malvern House, Eton, and Oxford, a member of no fewer than three Turkish baths, two cricket teams, and the bally Drones Club! Sometimes I feel I’ve seen every scrapbook, hunting trophy, and stamp collection in the British Isles! The love may not speak its name, but it’s got a lot of aliases and bally boat full of hobbies, what?

But back to the Garden. I found the wall where I’d seen Haddie, but no Haddie. I even climbed up on the wall and smoked a cigarette, hoping somehow to lure my wraith into the visible world. I saw nothing, but something saw me.

‘Ghost!’

I looked about but couldn’t tell from whence the whispered cry came.

‘Ghost!’

I turned sharply, too sharply, to look behind me and ended up doing my best impression of Humpty-Dumpty, flattening a bed of autumn Michaelmas daises or Guy Fawkes gorse or something in the plant kingdom that wasn’t as soft and compressible as I’d have wished. But rather than king’s men and horses, what greeted me was a girl sitting spryly on a thick limb like a Cheshire cat.

‘You aren’t a ghost,’ said the observant one.

‘No,’ I agreed. I’d had the breath knocked out of me, but I was fairly certain that I was still on the up side of the roots and berries.

‘You look like a ghost,’ said she.

I tried a long shot. ‘Do you mean Haddie?’

‘Is that his name?”

The heart leapt, and I quickly got to my feet.

‘I’m Bertram,’ I said.

‘I’m Miranda.’

She was a fragile creature with a small, soft, musical voice, giving the ripe impression of something elfin or perhaps a…

Dryad! Wood nymph!

‘Lord love a duck!’

Miranda laughed a tinkling laugh and I was certain that this was the girl that Haddie had mentioned. But where did Joyce fit into things?

‘Are you feeling better?’ I asked, remembering my manners.

‘Yes. I was upset about missing the party but now…’

‘It is not nice being at a party where there’s a murder. Was Joyce your friend?’

‘Yes. She was a great friend in a way. We told each other all our secrets. She had been to India. I wish I’d been to India.’

‘Had she seen Haddie?’

She shook her head, and a thought occurred. Joyce was a known fibber. She hadn’t seen a ghost. Miranda had. But did it follow that Joyce hadn’t seen a murder, but Miranda had? Had the murderer exacted revenge on the wrong witness? And, when they realised their mistake, would they return to finish the job?

My blood turned to ice at the thought, farfetched as it was.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Miranda.

I coughed, then recovered and changed the subject adroitly.

‘Do you know this garden well?’

‘Oh, yes, it’s one of my favourite places. Nobody knows where I am, you see, when I come here. I sit in trees—on the branches and watch things. I like that. Watching things. Birds. Squirrels. Would you like me to show you around?’

I signed onto the guided tour at once, and we commenced our meander. After a bit, I returned the conversation to the spectre at the feast.

‘You’ve seen a ghost?’

‘You’ve seen him, too, if you know his name.’

‘But my ghost might not be yours. What does yours look like?’

‘He looks like you, but a bit younger. He stands on that wall back there at dusk and smokes.’

‘Only at dusk?’

‘That’s the only time I’ve seen him, but I’ve never been here early in the morning.’

‘Have you talked to him?’

She shook her head.

‘Then how do you know he’s a ghost?’

‘Because everyone knows everyone in Woodleigh Common, and he doesn’t live here. And I never see him arrive or depart. He just appears. And he’s wearing the same clothes every time I see him and smoking the same cigarette, but he never, ever drops even a speck of ash on the ground.’

‘You’re a pretty good detective,’ I remarked.

‘Elementary, my dear Bertram,’ she said with a charming grin. Then she looked back over her shoulder and pointed, saying,

‘In the middle there, that’s where the fountain was. Years ago. It was all broken up. People took bits of it away, but nobody has put a new one there. I suppose it’s still there, underneath the azaleas. I keep looking for the well, the wishing well. Michael, Michael Garfield, the gardener, knows where it is but he won’t tell me. People used to go ‘round it three times backwards and make their wishes, but it was on a hill, so it wasn’t so easy. I shall find it one day even if Michael never tells me where it is. There was a wishing tree, a beech tree halfway up the hillside, but it was struck by lightning a couple of years ago and split in two.’

I was beginning to think that for a quiet spot celebrating the beauty of nature, Quarry Garden certainly had its share of supernatural elements. Then my guide asked me the rummiest question.

‘Do you think about sacrifice, Bertram?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and the many articles of clothing that I’ve relinquished as recompense for your launching me out of the soup did a conga line through my thoughts.

‘Michael says that somethings die so that others live. That somethings die so that beauty may come into being, but I think perhaps somethings die because they are responsible for the death of something else.’

I’m quite certain that blighter like Garfield would say stuff like that, but it sounded horribly thick coming from a slip of a girl like her. Of course, I wasn’t quite certain how to reply, but it didn’t matter because Miranda halted, turned, and looking me straight in the eye, followed it up with a heart-stopper,

‘Do you think that someone ought to die because what they’ve done killed someone else?’

My mouth was open to reply, but the voice that spoke was not mine.

‘No.’

I whipped ‘round, and there was Tony.

He’d come to tell me that the police were at Quarry House and wanted a word with me. This flustered me not a little and on many fronts, but mostly because there was more I wanted to discuss with Miranda, and I had the growing sensation that she might not be safe. Over her protests, I asked Tony to walk her to her home, and I asked Miranda to see if it were possible for her to pop ‘round to Quarry House later in the day. Tony raised his eyebrows at this but said nothing.

What the gendarme wanted to question me about was about my movements (as they say in films and, apparently, out of them) during the party while the Snapdragon had been going on downstairs. I’d already given a general statement, of course, but they were after something specific about Mrs. Drake. I told them that I’d been hidden in a guest bedroom of Apple Trees writing a note to a friend (that would be you, old thing, because I don’t know that I mightn’t have aroused suspicion by declaring I was taking time out of a party to write to my valet!) and upon abandoning my ‘quiet bough,’ I saw Mrs. Drake on the first floor landing. She was looking down over the well of the staircase, towards the library, then turned her head and, evidently startled at the sight of a typical young man about town emerging from one of her guest rooms, dropped the heavy vase that was in her hands. The vase and contents toppled down the stairs and a big mess was had by one and all, especially Mrs. Drake, who was rendered quite soggy by the accident. I hastened to her side and so did Mrs. Whittaker, the schoolteacher, who was downstairs at the time, but the latter being the more efficient half of the cavalry, of course, took over and I was ordered to fetch a glass cloth and a broom from the kitchen, which I did.

Based on the rozzers’ questions it seems like they’re wondering just what it was that startled Mrs. Drake and now so am I. On reflection, was it likely that it was Bertram? I’ve only known her for a day, but Mrs. Drake strikes me as the kind of battleship more likely to be annoyed than surprised by a guest wandering from the designated path. So, was the disturbing something downstairs, perhaps in vicinity of the library, viz. where Joyce’s body was found? Perhaps the good hostess knows something she isn’t telling.

So much to brood upon! Thanks goodness you packed extra cigarettes!

Yours,

B.

P.S. I think it’s marvelous that you’re fixing up your aunt’s old car. I didn’t know you went in for that sort of thing! Is there anything you can’t do?

* * *

**Diary of Bertram Wooster**

28 October 1923

Poor Aunt Dahlia. Murder has put the aged r. right off her chicken hunt. She says the moment the police allow it, she’s galloping back to the ol’ homestead, never, ever to darken Woodleigh Common again. She plans to throw herself on the mercy of Uncle Tom’s court, and if there’s no joy, resign herself to returning the frock to her fairy dressmaker. She and Mrs. Weston are settled into an impromptu sewing circle to while away the time. Not certain what they’re sewing. Sock puppets, judging by the look of things.

I had a curious conversation with Tony, who, as it turns out, is as worried about Miranda as I am. He said he tried to reason with her; that he knew how she felt; that he, in earlier days, had done something to cause someone’s death and suffered for it. He agreed, based on his chinwag with Miranda on the way to her home, that it might have been Miranda and not Joyce who saw the murder and that Joyce may have been killed by murderer (or someone covering up for murderer!). He cleverly arranged for Miranda to come to supper with her mother (with the excuse that she wanted to hear my story, which she missed out on yesterday) at Quarry House. I’m resolved to resolve the matter, once and for all, then.

So, from murder to ghost. As soon as golden orb starts to dip, I plan to stake out the wall and wait for my poltergeist’s appearance.

* * *

**THE GENTLE LADIES’ GUIDE TO MAKING YOUR OWN COSH***

* _or blackjack if you prefer the American term._

**_When danger’s about / Don’t be without_ **

**_A cosh is a must / In it, ladies trust!_ **

**In five easy steps. Step 1…**

* * *

 

28 October 1923

Jeeves!

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t make myself understood to the beazel who answered the telephone at your aunt’s! Listen, in a few moments, I’m slated for the most frightful affair of my bally life! Positively into the lion’s den, Jeeves! I haven’t much time to write, but here’s the gist.

I found Haddie on the wall at dusk, and the upshot is I’m headed to the gardener’s cottage to distract Garfield whilst Tony digs up the silver cockerel which, according to Miranda, is buried amongst the ruins of the old fountain. Garfield is a Bad Man of the darkest order, and if he gets wise to scheme, there’s a good chance I’ll be haunting a garden somewhere in the Greek isles, but a _preux_ chevalier never turns his back on those in need. Or true love.

The hour is nigh, ol’ thing, when this half-wit stops spouting nonsense about the fighting ancestors and becomes one.

Oh, and Miranda promised to tell her mother the whole truth about the murder (the one she saw, not Joyce). They’re _en route_ to the police station now. So, at least, that’s taken care of.

Aunt Dahlia is at the door. I am going to give her the slip and rendezvous with Tony at the gate to Quarry Woods.

Yours, in this world, the next, and in-between,

B.

* * *

**Haddie’s Story [as told to B. W. Wooster]**

‘I met someone. Beautiful. Charismatic. Artistic. That my admiration was reciprocated was the most inebriating drug on earth. Soon, however, I realised his beauty was entirely superficial. His charisma grotesquely tainted with ego. His talent, quite literally, bought at the price of his soul, and others’.

He wasn’t just a student of the occult, he was a skilled practitioner.

When I realised my mistake, it was too late. He worked for my father. I stopped making visits home, spent my free time in London. I met someone else. After a year, I had the itch to show my new love where I was from. We dreamt up a mad scheme to make it possible without anyone the wiser: he’d pretend to be my valet.

My old love was waiting. He hadn’t forgotten me. He said he’d ruin my life, and my new love’s life, if I didn’t agree to his demands. He tricked me into meeting him in the most godforsaken corner of his precious garden. I remember his eyes, greedy and cruel, then everything went dark.

I woke. It was night, then something was ripped away. I saw a ranging bonfire. I saw my new love motionless and tied to a slab.

Sacrifice.

I was tied, too, and gagged but on the ground with my back against a stone wall. Beside me, there was a black rooster, hooded and bound.

A book rested open on the slab. I heard mumbling.

Then I was given a choice: my soul or his?

I didn’t understand.

My soul?

I hesitated.

The dagger was raised to more mumbling, then it was brought down, straight into the gut and dragged toward his chest.

I screamed around the gag.

‘MINE!’

The bastard smiled.

‘Good boy.’

The rooster was taken up and sliced with practised ease. Its blood collected in a silver vessel set upon the slab. The bird was tossed aside.

More mumbling.

A knife, a second blade for the first was still impaled, drew near.

Smoke billowed. My head swam. My frantic attempts at fight and flight turned to freakish, uncoordinated spasms. It was then that I realised why I was bound by the elbows.

I was hoisted on a wall. The knife slit my arms, lengthwise. I watched with horror as my blood dripped, joining that of the cockerel in the silver vessel.

A cigarette fell from my pocket.

A laugh.

‘Wanna smoke?’

The gag was drawn away. The end of the lit cigarette was pushed between my lips.

I tried to bite.

I tried to scream.

I tried to throw myself off the wall.

‘TONY!’

Nothing stirred but the crackling fire, then there was a voice.

‘Him? He’s just bait, worth about as much as that damned bird now. You were what I wanted all along. What can I say? I have a type. And I need a soul, well, a spare. You see mine’s, uh, spoken for. I traded it a long time ago for the power of a god: to create beauty, to make things grow, to move the earth, to seduce, to bend others to my will. Don’t worry. We’ll be together forever. No one will come between us. And I’ve already said your good-byes. Nothing left to do but die.’

But I didn’t die. It was far worse.

* * *

**Diary of Dahlia Travers**

28 October 1923

…who does that fathead think he is? Trying to give me the slip! As if I couldn’t read him like a book! And just what is he up to? Isn’t it enough that horrible business of the poor girl at supper? I hope whoever killed the other child gets run to ground like a fox. What a horrid secret to carry around with one! Oh, wait. There’s a telephone call. Jeeves? Good thing I’ve got Ugly’s letter in my pocket…

…read Jeeves the letter over the telephone, well, minus the closing bit (lads!). He’s on his way—as fast as his aunt’s two-seater will carry him. And so am I—armed with the ‘aunt’s best friend’ I made this afternoon! No Bad Man is going to make a ghost of my Bertie!

And the silver cockerel! I knew it! My beloved emerald silk fantasia may be mine yet!

* * *

**Diary of Diana Weston**

28 October 1923

Is that a car? No, I don’t suppose so. Not at this hour.

Really, I don’t know what’s going on tonight. First, supper. On Dahlia’s nephew’s insistence, we invited Judith Butler and Miranda to supper to hear his story (the one he told at the party that Miranda missed, owing to fever; as it turned out a rather unpleasant tale about putting children in pies). Well, the hour arrived, and everyone was in attendance, except Mister Wooster. Miranda disappeared (with Mister Wooster’s valet, I might add) to find him, and then the three of them returned (with both master and valet looking as white as sheets, really the younger man looked positively ill) and then the story (already mentioned, unpleasant), then Miranda’s story about seeing a murder and not knowing it was a murder and now knowing it was murder and telling Joyce who repeated it at the party and poor Joyce was killed for it! Judith was, of course, beside herself, and they hurried off to the police station.

Mister Wooster then demanded to use the telephone and began screaming into it and no sooner had he finished than he disappeared with his valet (who I noticed, had helped himself to some tools from the shed). Later Dahlia was on the telephone with Mister Wooster’s valet (Does the young man have two? I suppose if this is his normal state, he requires extra care, perhaps one of them is really a nurse!) and then Dahlia slips out into the night with, I spied from my window, one of the coshes we made this afternoon! She was always a headstrong one, and I’m not a little bit afraid that she will do herself a horrible mischief!

But that isn’t all. No sooner had Dahlia left than Rowena Drake shows up asking if I have her bevel-edged punch bowl! Of course, I didn’t have it. I returned it last week. I saw the strain of this murder business was getting to her, too. She said the police had talked to her again. We had a strong cup of tea, and I told her everything, but even she couldn’t make any sense of it!

And, of course, Henry’s no help. Like talking to a fence post.

Well, if I can get poor Dahlia and her looney nephew (really, I think he might be better in some kind of home) decanted back to their places of origin, then I will insist that Henry and I go to London to a hotel for a month (at least!) and enjoy some peace and quiet!

Oh, dear God! That’s the fire bell!


	6. Chapter 6

[Front cover]

 

MRS. BEETON’S BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT

 

[Dedication page]

 

_From Merriweather Jeeves to Cybaline Jeeves, 1861_

_From Cybaline Jeeves to Hexobah Jeeves, 1889_

_From Hexobah Jeeves to Reginald Jeeves, 1923_

 

[Title page]

 

SPELLS & INCANTATIONS for the PRACTICAL PRACTITIONER

 

[Table of Contents]

 

Chapter 1: Rudimentary Spells

Chapter 2: Basic Incantations

:

Chapter 13: Battling Demons & Demonic Minions (Souled and Soulless)

:

* * *

**THE WOODLEIGH COMMON GAZETTE**

DEADLY COTTAGE FIRE!

At least one body has been recovered after a horrendous blaze razed a Woodleigh Common cottage to its foundations. The fire may have claimed more victims but identification efforts by authorities are hindered by the complete devastation of the site. Unusually, the areas of vegetation surrounding the cottage, including Quarry Woods, were spared completely. Investigators report that all signs point to the origin of the fire being a poorly-maintained chimney. No foul play is suspected at this time…

* * *

DENNISTOUN! WAKE UP YOU DYSPEPTIC CROW! EXPECT VISIT FROM SELF & CO BY DAWN. REQUIRE URGENT ASSISTANCE IN LOCATING TOMB OF MANSBRIDGE SON. YES, I AM INSUFFERABLE, BUT WE WERE AT SCHOOL TOGETHER, STONY! LIFE AND DEATH! B. WOOSTER

* * *

[Title page]

 

SPELLS & INCANTATIONS for the PRACTICAL PRACTITIONER

 

[Table of Contents]

:

Chapter 24: The Necromantic Art of Reanimation: Soul Captivity & Liberation

:

* * *

**Diary of Bertram Wooster**

29 October 1923

Now that it is all over, it is beastly to know where to start, and Jeeves is drawing the y.m. a much-needed bath, so there isn’t much time to gather thoughts.

After supper, Childe Wooster to the dark cottage went. In this particular set-up, I was the girl. I had to distract Garfield while Tony dug up the silver cockerel which contained Haddie’s soul. Miranda had told us that she’d spied Garfield burying it beneath the old fountain. Neither Tony and I knew what we were going to do with the shiny bird once we got it, but Haddie said that he was tied to it, so the plan, such as it was, was to put as much of the landscape between it and Garfield.

It was a sticky business, keeping an excrescence like Garfield’s attention while not getting the Wooster soul poached in the process. He fixed me a drink which I, when his back was turned, poured out the open French windows and then replaced with un-witch-doctored spirits from my hip flask. We were just getting down to business when there was a noise outside the cottage. I cursed Tony because we’d agreed to meet at my car, and we’d agreed that stealth was paramount, and whoever was approaching sounded about as stealthy as a herd of rhinoceros on the stampede.

Garfield heard the herd, too, and went to the door and just as he stepped out into the night to investigate…

WHAM!

He fell like a white rhino to a poacher.

“Aunt Dahlia!”

“And just what are you up to, young blighter?”  

I didn’t have time to respond because Garfield was waking up. He grabbed me by the leg and began mumbling things. An odd smoke began to swirl, and I suddenly felt light-headed, but just as I was about to crumble like the House of Usher, I heard another voice, a voice I knew as well as my own.

“JEEVES!”

He strode through the open French windows like an Assyrian coming down on the fold.

And then, the battle of Good versus Evil was on.

Garfield with his chanting, Jeeves with his, both looking like creatures from another realm. Recognising at once that we were mere mortals in caught in the middle of something much larger than ourselves, Aunt Dahlia and I huddled together. Spears of smoke and balls of fire were volleyed back and forth. Like rugby football, it was difficult to say if any team was winning, but the cottage, like the rugger pitch, was the definite loser. The furnishings smoldered, splintered, and smashed.

Just as things started to look rummy for our side, Aunt Dahlia pressed the cosh to me with a knowing look.

I gulped and gave a minute nod. Time for all good W.’s to come to the aid of the J.’s.

Using the overturned sofa as shield, I slithered toward Garfield on my stomach and ended up just behind him.

I caught Jeeves’ eye, and it only took one look of communion.

On three.

One. Two.

“YAAAH!” I cried and cracked Garfield on the head. I fell back behind the sofa as a scream of agony rang out.

Jeeves bellowed something, and I had just enough time to scurry back to Aunt Dahlia before a huge cord of white-hot fire cracked upon Garfield like a whip.

“He is vanquished,” said Jeeves in a voice that brokered no back-chat. Then he added quickly, “An immediate vacating of the premises is called for,” and extended an ushering hand toward the great outdoors.

Well, he didn’t need to say it twice.

Jeeves and I left Aunt Dahlia to tend to the local matters while we met Tony at the garage.

He carefully opened his bundled jacket, and there it was.

And it was absolutely hideous!

“His soul’s in that?” I cried, momentarily distracted by the awfulness of it all. “What do we do, Jeeves?”

“Where is the gentleman entombed?”

“Dorset,” said Tony.

“Yes, near Dennistoun’s place! Over the hill!” I added, remembering the first time I’d seen Haddie.

“Then that is where we need to go,” said Jeeves. “With all haste. I suggest we use my car, sir. I have brought materials that may prove essential to effecting our desired outcome.”

“What, your bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble kit?”

“It may amount to that, sir.”

“Well, let’s get out of here before someone rings the fire bell.”

We made our escape just as the hue and cry was going up.

It was a long journey, but we all had stories to tell, so we told them while Jeeves and I took turns driving and Tony guarded the cockerel. We stopped for petrol, and I sent Dennistoun a telegram. We woke him up anyway when we rolled into town. He was just about to say the shot wasn’t on the board at any price and call us a bunch of names when he drank in the dire expressions on our collective maps, so he poured himself into country tweeds like a good ‘un and joined the crusade.

It needed the strength of the whole assembly to pry the lid off the tomb in the vault beneath the ruined chapel, then Jeeves took possession of the lantern and bid us leave.

Tony, Dennistoun, and I remained just outside the vault, much like expectant fathers outside the hospital maternity ward wondering, with no little apprehension, what the harvest would be.

In hushed tones, Tony and I put Dennistoun abreast of the circs. He boggled, of course, and made incredulous noises, but after a moment or two of silent contemplation made the bold statement that no one would be more thrilled than he if the Mansbridge heir came back to life because then he, Dennistoun, could throw off the mantle of country squire, rid himself of a great loathsome albatross of an estate, burn his tweeds, and get back to London and his former life as the manager of a West End theatre.

My heart sank when Jeeves appeared at the door and asked for me instead of Tony. I entered, fearing the worse.

“I was lax in my preparations, sir. I did not anticipate every eventuality.”

“What are you talking about? Did it work?”

“Yes, sir, the young gentleman is restored, body and soul.”

“Great Scott, Jeeves! Do you realise you brought a man back from the dead?! Well, call Tony…”

“But the young gentleman’s clothes were beyond restoration, and he is strongly averse to a reunion in his current state of undress. As you and he are of the same size, I took the liberty of offering him the clothes on your person.”

Well, I suppose it made sense. I mean the poached eggs in the maternity wards don’t come into this world with a stitch on either, do they? I believe Doctor Frankenstein had a similar difficulty.

And, really, in the end, the fuss Haddie made, tears and all the dashed soupy things he said about Jeeves and I, almost made up for the fact that I had to ride back to Dennistoun’s (or rather Haddie’s) place starkers save for a filthy rug that Jeeves’ aunt kept in the boot of the car, used, or so I gathered, for wrapping ‘round her especially niffy werewolf pals.

I suppose I ought to be floored at the fact that Jeeves practices magic, but I’ve always thought he practiced magic, so there.

And that’s the magician now, saying the bath’s ready. Time to wash the night’s foul work from the Wooster corpus. How relieved will I be to sink into those steamy waters, with nothing more to worry about, not a care in the whole bally firmament!

* * *

SUCCESS TIMES TWO, AGED R. HADRIAN MANSBRIDGE ONCE MORE AMONG THE LIVING. SILVER COCKEREL (DISCHARGED OF CONTENTS!) IN WOOSTER HANDS. JEEVES IS A WONDER. STAYING WITH DENNISTON FOR NOW. WHAT NEWS ON THE RIALTO? B. WOOSTER

* * *

**THE WOODLEIGH COMMON GAZETTE**

SUSPECT IN CHILD MURDER AT LARGE!

Police are seeking information about the whereabouts of forty-three-year-old Rowena Drake of Woodleigh Common in connection with the murder of a child which occurred during a Hallowe’en party held at her home on October 27. Mrs. Blake is also wanted by police for questioning related to the disappearance of Olga Seminoff, a young woman of Eastern European origin who was in the employ of Mrs. Drake’s late husband’s aunt three years ago. Anyone with any pertinent information is asked to contact…

* * *

[Note on the passenger’s seat of a fast-moving car]

Things to do:

  1. KILL WOOSTER!
  2. KILL WOOSTER!
  3. KILL WOOSTE



* * *

[Title page]

 

SPELLS & INCANTATIONS for the PRACTICAL PRACTITIONER

:

APPENDIX I: RECIPES

:

ANTI-DEMONIC BATH BOMB

A staple for any practitioner’s home. Once in contact with water, this device will effectively vanquish any demonic elements and return such elements to their pre-possession state while having no adverse effect whatsoever on any unpossessed beings in the vicinity.

2 cups bicarbonate of un-Luciferean soda

1 cup cream of Tartar’s holy water

1 teaspoon of eye of newt (or your preferred amphibian)

2 teaspoons of Essentially Good oil

:

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haddie's short for Hadrian and Tony's short for Antinous, referencing the Roman Emperor and his lover.


	7. Chapter 7

**THE WOODLEIGH COMMON GAZETTE**

SUSPECT SURRENDERS!

Rowena Drake walked into the Woodleigh Common police station yesterday and made a full confession as to her role in the death of a thirteen-year-old child as well as the murder of Martin Drake, her husband, and Olga Seminoff, an employee of her husband’s late aunt. The latter murder Mrs. Drake declares was committed with the aide of an accomplice, Michael Garfield, a local gardener who was killed in a cottage fire Sunday evening. Based on information provided by Mrs. Drake, the police expect to recover Miss Seminoff’s remains in an abandoned well in Quarry Gardens. Remunerative gain is at the root of the crimes…

* * *

**THE DORSET ECHO**

DOREST'S PRODIGAL SON RETURNS!

Eight years after his alleged suicide, Hadrian Mansbridge III, heir to the Mansbridge shipping and construction fortune, returned to his ancestral home…

* * *

Inett Dressmaking

8 Victoria Avenue

Droitwich

 

2 November 1923

 

Dahlia Travers

Brinkley Court

Worcestershire

 

Dear Mrs. Travers:

Please find enclosed a receipt for full payment…

* * *

J,

Would you mind distributing this lot of books amongst the deserving poor tomorrow?

[Except the one about the orphanage. It’s too ghastly to inflict on the down-trodden. Just chuck it in Mrs. Tinkler-Moulke’s window. Hit the Pom if you can manage it.]

Being in a ghost story has robbed me of a taste for reading them. Perhaps one day I’ll write my own. If I ever do, I think that chappie Stoker’s got the right idea.

Dining at the club. Give my ‘what ho’ to the lads at the Junior Ganymede tonight.

yours,

B.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank for reading!
> 
> The ghost orphanage was an attempt to get in the second of the two photo prompts I was given:

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
